Itaewon Class

Episodes: 16

Synopsis: This drama focuses on Park Saeroyi, a righteous young man who refuses to be anything but straightforward. His life gets turned around after he is expelled from school for punching a bully, his father is killed in a car accident, and he is forced to carry the weight of knowing who did not pay for their crime. After coming out of prison for assault, he decides to open up a pub called DanBam in hopes of taking on the Jangga corporation. With the help of an interesting group of characters -- a smart sociopathic girl, a biracial Korean, an ex-gangster, and a transgender chef, Park Saeroyi begins to rise in the food industry. A true story of how revenge takes time and that bad karma can always be manifested and delivered to those who deserve it.

Review

I watched this drama as there were a lot of people hyping it up. In fact, a few of my friends have recommended it to me saying that they were currently watching it as well and that they enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy it. A big part of the reason is the fact that most of the characters in this drama are unlikable and very shady. I spent most of the drama stressed out, frustrated, and angry. I found it hard to invest in the characters as many were inconsistent and unlikable. The characters that I did enjoy were either too rigid or too in the background. 

       Saeroyi felt so unrealistic about how rigid he was. I hated all the love interests in this drama because I felt none of the girls were particularly likable. There were many unrealistic aspects that threw me off in the drama such as: how poorly Saeroyi ran his pub when he first opened (a lot of the stuff seemed like common sense, but they needed to introduce Jo Yi Seo to the business somehow), how Saeroyi thought his pub could grow to tackle on a recognized and giant food industry, and how he actually managed to succeed. It jumped a lot so we never truly saw the process for success. While it was satisfying to see DanBam climb up the food hierarchy, it felt like things were too easy. I feel like characters such as Hyunyi, Toni, and Choi Seung Kwon were the most enjoyable to watch. However, we saw so little of them...especially Toni. I know many stressed how nice it was to see diversity in the Korean drama, especially as he acted as someone biracial and was highlighting the stigma he experiences of not being recognized as Korean. However, it felt like he wasn't on screen that often and the acting was subpar. The best acting in this drama has got to be from Jang Dae Hee...it gave me chills, and at the end, he confused me as to how I should treat him because I actually felt bad for him.  

            Also real talk: the hair was not a vibe in this drama...especially for the main leads.

I do want to commend the drama for a few things: 

- Their OSTs were very catchy 

- Their focus on issues such as transgenders in Korea and foreigners with Korean heritage in Korea -- it targetted a lot of discriminatory practices that occur, and it provided a good perspective on those individuals. It made you like those characters more and feel thankful they had DanBam to call their home. (I will never forgive what Geunsoo did to Hyunyi in episode 12) 

Fondant Garden

This is a Taiwanese drama but it has Korean components combined into it. Also Park Jungmin from SS501 acted in this drama. So SS501 fans should totally check this out and support Jungmin! He worked extremely hard and even had to grab a cactus plant to emphasize a scene and in the end, the stylists had to pluck cactus needles out of his hand :( This drama is the kind that won't make you cry but keep you interested in the love story between the characters. The story picks up at episode 5, the beginning episodes are to let you understand the story better. There is also the use of both Korean and Chinese as Park Jung Min is Korean and he plays a Taiwanese-Korean character.

Synopsis: 
              Our main character is Zheng Mi En and she is a very talented pastry chef and works and manages a bakery called Fondant Garden. Her friend, Chen Ai Lin, asked Mi  En to bake the cakes for her and to pass them off as her own creations to convince her father that she was the one baking these delicious cakes that Mi En was actually making. So, Mi En takes Ai Lin's place in the fondant cake-making competition in Korea and it dragged Mi En into Ai  Lin's lies.
             She meets Po Xi Huan/ Park Hee Hwan who is a second-generation Taiwanese-Korean businessman from a Korean company. He does not want to inherit the family business yet his father wants him to. His father wanted to use the upcoming cake competition as a way to force Xi Huan into an arranged marriage with the winner (who was chosen ahead of time). That sucks considering they are still having this competition and Xi Huan did not want to have an arranged marriage with the girl. He had met Mi En before asking her to smile at him once so that he can leave the date. He's not interested in that girl chosen for him.
              Han Xiang, is Xi Huan's Taiwanese cousin who runs the family business division in Taiwan. He also wants to get his father's company too and he finds it hard to understand how his cousin was not interested in taking over the business, and might still get it. Therefore, Xi Huan, in order to not get the business decides tp go to Taiwan for a vacation. He gets hit in the head with a frying pan and temporarily lost his memory and stays with Mi En at Fondant Garden. At first, Mi En liked Han Xiang as he was the first guy she met and took interest to.  However, overtime, she begins to find herself liking Xi Huan and her friend Ai Lin starts to like Xi Huan. In this drama, you can see how the actors interact with one another and how the love story goes.